Today my time bandit friends, we'll be pulling it all together into 1.21 gigawatts of awesome success with the help of your friend and mine, AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).

Brain child of E. St. Elmo Lewis AIDA was originally developed to outline the principles to which good advertising should conform:

"The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement."
E. St. Elmo Lewis.

However, we'll use AIDA because it's a great tool to keep us focused on our customers' mindset and guide us in communicating in a meaningful way for each stage in their buying process.

So, Ready to rip through the space-time continuum with a website pumped and primed for future proof success?

Good.

To generate attention we need to get in front of people, people that aren't currently on your website (duh!). We need to get where the people are and pave some roads back. So..

1. Attention.

Use social media in combination with your blog to drive attention.

Good blog content naturally attracts more links into your website. Giving you more traffic from search engines as well as the linking websites, reducing reliance on paid traffic and growing targeted visitors organically over time.

Tip: Keep your content focused on the topics and benefits that relate to your business. This builds up landing pages that will pay you back for years to come; plus the visitors that you get will be much more targeted and likely to engage with you and convert into customers.

A good understanding of the search phrases that are important to your business will keep you on track here (we picked those up from 2004, remember?). Plan out the topics you'll cover and match them up to your search phrases, this is the foundation for your content strategy.

The roads you build with your content should be somewhere your potential customers want to go!

So, now you're building targeted content that will naturally draw new customers to you, the next step is to use social media to turbo charge your content's effectiveness.

Turbo charge content with social delivery.

Even if you don't have a strong social media presence, include sharing widgets on your blog article pages, so visitors can share your content with their social networks. Most widgets include some analytics features and it's great to see your articles being passed on. Win!

"Stop right there" I hear you cry. "We've got no followers" how does that work for me?

The important thing to get your head around is the fact that everyone, every person, every brand is a publisher. Everyone has a degree of reach and a following.

This is why it's important for you to develop your own network of people interested in your products, services and views.

Bear in mind that this is a long term strategy, you need to grow and nurture an engaged network. Creating interesting content will help you to do this.

With a large and engaged network, when you publish new content you get a much better take up; the content you create will be shared more readily and at a larger scale. Happy days!

This 'blog and share' method combines SEO best practice with social media marketing to connect with people who are genuinely interested in your stuff.

It's no longer about who has the biggest wallet for advertising. Attention and engagement is being won by those who excel at understanding their customers, their marketplace and regularly engage in helpful and interesting ways.

Which brings me on to..

2. Interest.

This is important. I know you love your products and services.

But unfortunately your prospects couldn't care less about them (Ouch. I know that hurts.)

They just want to solve a problem.

So what's the problem you are going to solve for them?

Here's a test.

Take a look at your homepage, you can do that now. I'll wait.. That was quick! Now imagine you're a potential customer and say to yourself "what's in it for me?"

If your homepage doesn't answer that question. It should.

Here's an example of me looking at my homepage and talking to myself:

Me: "Jumplead. What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Jumplead identifies the companies visiting your website."

Well that's what the software does. How does that solve my problem? Try again.

Me: "What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Err.. You get to see which companies are researching your marketplace."

Still don't get it, do you? Try again..

Me: "What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Take control your lead generation, discover an ongoing source of leads."

Ok, so now we're generating attention and sparking some interest, good going. What's next? I hear you ask.

Well that was the easy bit, now you need to create desire and drive action.

3. Desire.

How do you make someone want what you've got?

You can start by creating a picture in your customers mind of how their life will be better, easier when they are enjoying the benefits you can give them.

Think very carefully about all of the ways in which you benefit your customers, and make sure you communicate all of them. Yes, all of them.

Don't be afraid of long pages, they are your friend. If someone is interested they will keep reading and the more they read the more they'll be sold.

Always remember that the sale happens in your customer's mind, paint a picture of how other's have benefited from what you do.

Use testimonials that back up the life changing power of the unique benefits you can bring. Then use facts and figures, research, graphs and specifications that back up the excellence of your offer.

Show your happy customers, for visitors to relate to; that they can imagine being. As well as making the benefits easy to visualise, testimonials also have the advantage of demonstrating social proof.

As your potential customers navigate your website, soaking up the testimonials, learning more about how you can make their lives easier, better, faster, at any moment they might decide that they're interested. And want more..

Interested is great! They might even get straight on the phone to buy your goodness in whatever way they can.

However it's more likely that they'll convert in a smaller way, by taking some action on your website.

4. Action.

Make it easy for your website visitors to connect with you and to register interest, and to find out more in as many ways as possible.

Simply having a contact page, does miss the mark somewhat. They are notoriously bad at converting visitors.

So, subscribing for updates, or registering to download an ebook, taking a free trial, all of these micro conversions signal a heightened level of interest and should be monitored using a tool (some what like, but of course not limited to) Jumplead as part of your lead generation efforts.

They might not even be ready to buy, but you want them on your radar. You want to be able to manage your interactions with them and to track how they converted, and where they came from so that you can see which activity is generating the best quality responses.

Well that's all for today my time travelling friends. I hope you enjoyed our internet marketing tips for boosting success!

In our continuing quest for internet marketing success, today we're going to implement the internet marketing tips we pilfered from across the years.

Today my time bandit friends, we'll be pulling it all together into 1.21 gigawatts of awesome success with the help of your friend and mine, AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action).

Brain child of E. St. Elmo Lewis AIDA was originally developed to outline the principles to which good advertising should conform:

"The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement."
E. St. Elmo Lewis.

However, we'll use AIDA because it's a great tool to keep us focused on our customers' mindset and guide us in communicating in a meaningful way for each stage in their buying process.

So, Ready to rip through the space-time continuum with a website pumped and primed for future proof success?

Good.

To generate attention we need to get in front of people, people that aren't currently on your website (duh!). We need to get where the people are and pave some roads back. So..

1. Attention.

Use social media in combination with your blog to drive attention.

Good blog content naturally attracts more links into your website. Giving you more traffic from search engines as well as the linking websites, reducing reliance on paid traffic and growing targeted visitors organically over time.

Tip: Keep your content focused on the topics and benefits that relate to your business. This builds up landing pages that will pay you back for years to come; plus the visitors that you get will be much more targeted and likely to engage with you and convert into customers.

A good understanding of the search phrases that are important to your business will keep you on track here (we picked those up from 2004, remember?). Plan out the topics you'll cover and match them up to your search phrases, this is the foundation for your content strategy.

The roads you build with your content should be somewhere your potential customers want to go!

So, now you're building targeted content that will naturally draw new customers to you, the next step is to use social media to turbo charge your content's effectiveness.

Turbo charge content with social delivery.

Even if you don't have a strong social media presence, include sharing widgets on your blog article pages, so visitors can share your content with their social networks. Most widgets include some analytics features and it's great to see your articles being passed on. Win!

"Stop right there" I hear you cry. "We've got no followers" how does that work for me?

The important thing to get your head around is the fact that everyone, every person, every brand is a publisher. Everyone has a degree of reach and a following.

This is why it's important for you to develop your own network of people interested in your products, services and views.

Bear in mind that this is a long term strategy, you need to grow and nurture an engaged network. Creating interesting content will help you to do this.

With a large and engaged network, when you publish new content you get a much better take up; the content you create will be shared more readily and at a larger scale. Happy days!

This 'blog and share' method combines SEO best practice with social media marketing to connect with people who are genuinely interested in your stuff.

It's no longer about who has the biggest wallet for advertising. Attention and engagement is being won by those who excel at understanding their customers, their marketplace and regularly engage in helpful and interesting ways.

Which brings me on to..

2. Interest.

This is important. I know you love your products and services.

But unfortunately your prospects couldn't care less about them (Ouch. I know that hurts.)

They just want to solve a problem.

So what's the problem you are going to solve for them?

Here's a test.

Take a look at your homepage, you can do that now. I'll wait.. That was quick! Now imagine you're a potential customer and say to yourself "what's in it for me?"

If your homepage doesn't answer that question. It should.

Here's an example of me looking at my homepage and talking to myself:

Me: "Jumplead. What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Jumplead identifies the companies visiting your website."

Well that's what the software does. How does that solve my problem? Try again.

Me: "What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Err.. You get to see which companies are researching your marketplace."

Still don't get it, do you? Try again..

Me: "What's in it for me?"
Other Me: "Take control your lead generation, discover an ongoing source of leads."

Ok, so now we're generating attention and sparking some interest, good going. What's next? I hear you ask.

Well that was the easy bit, now you need to create desire and drive action.

3. Desire.

How do you make someone want what you've got?

You can start by creating a picture in your customers mind of how their life will be better, easier when they are enjoying the benefits you can give them.

Think very carefully about all of the ways in which you benefit your customers, and make sure you communicate all of them. Yes, all of them.

Don't be afraid of long pages, they are your friend. If someone is interested they will keep reading and the more they read the more they'll be sold.

Always remember that the sale happens in your customer's mind, paint a picture of how other's have benefited from what you do.

Use testimonials that back up the life changing power of the unique benefits you can bring. Then use facts and figures, research, graphs and specifications that back up the excellence of your offer.

Show your happy customers, for visitors to relate to; that they can imagine being. As well as making the benefits easy to visualise, testimonials also have the advantage of demonstrating social proof.

As your potential customers navigate your website, soaking up the testimonials, learning more about how you can make their lives easier, better, faster, at any moment they might decide that they're interested. And want more..

Interested is great! They might even get straight on the phone to buy your goodness in whatever way they can.

However it's more likely that they'll convert in a smaller way, by taking some action on your website.

4. Action.

Make it easy for your website visitors to connect with you and to register interest, and to find out more in as many ways as possible.

Simply having a contact page, does miss the mark somewhat. They are notoriously bad at converting visitors.

So, subscribing for updates, or registering to download an ebook, taking a free trial, all of these micro conversions signal a heightened level of interest and should be monitored using a tool (some what like, but of course not limited to) Jumplead as part of your lead generation efforts.

They might not even be ready to buy, but you want them on your radar. You want to be able to manage your interactions with them and to track how they converted, and where they came from so that you can see which activity is generating the best quality responses.

Well that's all for today my time travelling friends. I hope you enjoyed our internet marketing tips for boosting success!